5 ms·

Follow buttons and the logged out user

23 points by julien 13y ago

aaronbasssett 13y ago
> Fred Wilson coined the term over 2 years ago What? No. That's ridiculous. For as long as people have used the phrase "logged in" there have been logged out users. A simple Google search for the phrase turns up a thread† from 8 years ago, and that's certainly not the first either. Coined the term? Really? † http://www.unix.com/unix-advanced-expert-users/25178-who-9-command-shows-logged-out-users.html http://www.unix.com/unix-advanced-expert-users/25178-who-9-c...
christophe971 13y ago
Sidenote: They updated their WP plugin today as well http://wordpress.org/plugins/subtome/ http://wordpress.org/plugins/subtome/
julien 13y ago
I hope HN had a follow button too :)
NoodleIncident 13y ago
I habitually hover over links before clicking them to see the url in the status bar. It deeply unsettles me when I see a button for which this tactic doesn't work. Rationally, I know there's no difference; you could have an href="example.com" and just capture clicks to do whatever you want. Nevertheless, it still spooked me enough to stop me from clicking the button.
- julien 13y ago
  That's a very good point. I think we can do that by setting up a href on the <a> will still return false on the onlick. right?
adyus 13y ago
The solution proposed seems interesting, but still requires an account with a third party, in this case the feed reader (if not online, a downloaded native app). Given the nature of self-updating browsers and devices being permanently with or around users, I suggest something else. Let me follow whoever I want without creating an account, store these preferences in localStorage, then use it to build a news feed on the home page, just like a logged in user. Then, unobtrusively suggest other features that can only be made available to signed up users, due to technical constraints. (No, notifications are not such features; a browser extension that checks localStorage and raises browser notifications a la Chrome should be enough for non-logged in users).

23 points by julien 13y ago

> Fred Wilson coined the term over 2 years ago What? No. That's ridiculous. For as long as people have used the phrase "logged in" there have been logged out users. A simple Google search for the phrase turns up a thread† from 8 years ago, and that's certainly not the first either. Coined the term? Really? † http://www.unix.com/unix-advanced-expert-users/25178-who-9-command-shows-logged-out-users.html http://www.unix.com/unix-advanced-expert-users/25178-who-9-c...

christophe971 13y ago

Sidenote: They updated their WP plugin today as well http://wordpress.org/plugins/subtome/ http://wordpress.org/plugins/subtome/

julien 13y ago

I hope HN had a follow button too :)

NoodleIncident 13y ago

I habitually hover over links before clicking them to see the url in the status bar. It deeply unsettles me when I see a button for which this tactic doesn't work. Rationally, I know there's no difference; you could have an href="example.com" and just capture clicks to do whatever you want. Nevertheless, it still spooked me enough to stop me from clicking the button.

julien 13y ago
That's a very good point. I think we can do that by setting up a href on the <a> will still return false on the onlick. right?

adyus 13y ago

The solution proposed seems interesting, but still requires an account with a third party, in this case the feed reader (if not online, a downloaded native app). Given the nature of self-updating browsers and devices being permanently with or around users, I suggest something else. Let me follow whoever I want without creating an account, store these preferences in localStorage, then use it to build a news feed on the home page, just like a logged in user. Then, unobtrusively suggest other features that can only be made available to signed up users, due to technical constraints. (No, notifications are not such features; a browser extension that checks localStorage and raises browser notifications a la Chrome should be enough for non-logged in users).